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“Impossible to say. The tubes and pumps have held for years, and might hold for years to come. Or they might not. ”
“What about those engineers you mentioned?” Cly asked. “Can they give you a better idea?”
“They’re trying, but they are new to the city and still learning the finer points of its workings. I have recruited them with generous paychecks. And I am trusting your confidence on this matter when I tell you—” He paused and looked up into the giant’s face. “—I’m burning through Minnericht’s coffers at a rather alarming rate. He left a fortune, of course. He hoarded it like a dragon, underneath King Street Station. But it is costing a fortune to keep this place livable. ”
The captain asked, “Then why are you going to all this trouble? Does the sap really make that much money, to make it all worth this?”
A thin, slow smile spread across Yaozu’s face, and it was not entirely pleasant. “Oh, yes. And the potential for more money still is staggering. The gas—this punishing, brutal substance that killed the city above us—it offers us the means to save it. With better processing and more efficient means of survival underground, these doornails”—he used the white men’s slang for the underground citizens—“could make more money than Californians have ever dug out of their rocks. ”
“And you. ”
“Me?”
“You stand to make a bundle, too, don’t you?”
“Absolutely. But as I was sometimes forced to wonder, with regards to my former … employer, what does it profit a man to be wealthy, but to live in the midst of such…” He hunted for a word, and settled on one. “Instability? It was obscene to me, how much he could have done for this place—and how little interest he showed in doing so. ”
“So why don’t you make your money and leave? With what’s left of Minnericht’s stash, you could live like a king outside these walls. Everybody knows it. Everybody wonders. ”
“Everybody knows it?” Yaozu asked, his understated smile fixed in place. “I wonder what else everybody knows. ” He gazed down the pathway and once more struck out for it. “But to answer your question, I stay here because I want to. I like this settlement where a man like me, or like you”—he gestured one long hand toward Cly’s chest—“can live undisturbed by others. ”
“But I don’t live here. ”
“You could if you wished; you’d fit right in. Perhaps,” he said, watching Cly duck to dodge a low-hanging support beam, “less so in the literal sense. I’ve often thought it must be strange to be a man of your size. Like Gulliver in Lilliput, at times. ”
Cly was familiar with the tale, and Yaozu wasn’t the first to make that comparison. The captain shrugged as he ducked another beam. “I’ve been big my whole life. You get used to it. I’ve known a few dwarfs—a couple of them pirates, and damn fine ones—and I’ve wondered the same thing about them. I expect it’s not so different, living in a world where nothing is the right size. ”
Yaozu murmured, “I know what you mean. ”
“There’s nothing strange about your size,” Cly observed.
“Not my size, no. But outside these walls, I could be treated as a monster, evicted from my home, my property seized and my family sent away. It happens all the time in Portland, you know. Strange persons such as ourselves, Captain Cly … we may be very different from one another, but we recognize a kinship all the same. ”
In silence they traversed another few blocks, and all the while, Cly considered this. Finally he said, “I suppose that answers my question well enough. ”
“Speaking of fitting in … you’ve spent a good deal more time in the underground than before these last few months. ”
Cly flushed, and even the rattling lantern couldn’t hide the creeping color. “I’m not … Well. Maybe a little more. ”
“You protest too much, Captain. And look, here we are at the cross-paths before the vaults. ”
It was true. Their conversation had brought them all the way to the edge of a set of living quarters, the entrance to which had once been a great bank vault with a reinforced door in a reinforced room.
Here, where people came and went more frequently, the labyrinth opened and the streets were packed cleaner, lined with planks or stepping stones held aloft from the perpetually moist floor. More lanterns hung, dimmed, from the end of every wall, and containers of fuel were stationed beneath them, left ready for any passers-through who might require them. Painted signs were affixed to walls or mounted to posts between the corners where mine-cart tracks split the right-of-way. These weathered rectangles held messages in handwritten black lettering and clearly marked arrows.
UNION STREET, THIS WAY; SENECA STREET, OVER HERE; COMMERCIAL AVENUE, TO YOUR RIGHT.
“So,” Yaozu said, clapping his hands together. “My appeal for your services. ”
“Yeah, that,” Cly said. “Sure, I’ll make your supply run. I’ll need some details, and a list, and a budget—”
“Absolutely. I’ll draw up all of these things, and we’ll discuss your rate. ”
“Oh, that’s easy. I ask—”
“Whatever it is, I’ll double it. I’ll need you back by the end of next month, and I’ll need my instructions followed to the letter. I’m fully prepared to pay for speed and quality service. ”
“That’s good, that you’re giving me a few weeks. Because I’ve been thinking…”
